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Kevin Graham's Whitby Town story - part 6

Kevin Graham's Whitby Town story - part 6

Liam Ryder22 Mar 2020 - 08:45

Former Whitby Town defender, Kevin Graham takes us through his time at the club.

Being married to or living with a footballer, particularly at that level, is quite difficult. You don’t get the trappings of a top player’s salary on which to develop a WAG’s lifestyle but you still have to put up with having most of your weekend affected by football. I wasn’t a father when I played at that level and I can’t imagine how hard that must be. In years gone by, women just put up with their lot and played the role of the dutiful wife but these days the role of the woman in the house is very much different. Lisa has forged a successful career for herself and has had to put up with not having me around (or having me around either injured or in a mood about how a particular game has gone). I will always be grateful for that and try to make it up to her these days, though there is always a part of me that needs football as its some sort of lifeblood to me and has shaped the character I am today. The balance between football and family life is one that has no doubt been the subject of many a barney for me and countless other players – I don’t always get it right but getting married and becoming a father have helped to bring perspective and balance that wasn’t there before.

The first game of the season was away at Droylsden, just outside Manchester, on a sunny Saturday in mid August. I drove to the game as Lisa and Pete, one of my mates from Uni, had come to watch the game. We went into the dressing room at 1.45 and Harry named the team – I was in, which was great news as I took that to mean I was a first choice centre half. Droylsden’s ground is quite nice, with a big main stand down one side and covered standing around the rest of the pitch. The surface was excellent and the game started at a frenetic pace. It was pretty even until just before half time when I lost possession on the half way line, allowing them to break quickly and make it 1-0. I was gutted but don’t remember letting it really get to me. We came out in the second half and bossed the game for half an hour, quickly scoring three times and asserting ourselves on the game. A new signing, Carl Chillingworth, scored the third goal which was a great start from him. “Chilli” had left Whitby a couple of years earlier to sign for Coleraine in Northern Ireland. He flew across every weekend for games and was on well over £200 a week there but just got tired of the travelling and missing Saturday nights. He was a pretty tough lad form Middlesbrough and I got on really well with him, as everyone did. He was a big member of the card school, liked a drink and was always fun to be around but when he got on the pitch, he liked nothing more than sticking a centre half on his backside if he got the chance. He was typical of the lads at Whitby, and the team spirit was generally good because of that. I found that we generally won more games away from home, probably because the journey away was usually on the bus and the team bonding that goes on there brings you together more than if you all just turn up at quarter to two.

The last 15 mins of the Droylsden game were a bit of a battle, as they started pumping balls upfield in an attempt to get something out of the game. We defended really well, gave them very little in the way of chances and saw the game out comfortably in the end. It was great to get the season off to a winning start and our secretary, Charlie Woodward, said I was his man of the match, which gave me even more of a boost. It might have been him being nice – he was always a good bloke anyway mind who I still see at the odd non league game and enjoy his company – to boost my confidence but I have always been fairly critical of my own performances and I knew that I’d had a really good game, apart from the mistake that led to their goal which annoyed me still but didn’t take the shine away from a successful day all round.

I then came to understand just how quickly things can change in the game and how it can often be a case of one step forward, two steps back.

Lisa rang me at work on the Tuesday after the Drolysden game and asked me to come home as she’d been for some tests and the results had worried her. I jumped in the car and headed off from work but on the way, I passed out at the wheel of the car and ended up in hospital. I have slightly low blood pressure and have made a habit of passing out over the years but had never done it whilst driving. I’d only been driving at about 35 mph so wasn’t injured too badly. I did, however, miss the game away to Spennymoor that night obviously. Lisa was ok in the end so there was no real harm done to us but I was unable to drive after that until I’d undergone a series of medical tests and satisfied the authorities that I was fit to drive again. On top of that, my car was wrecked!

None of this would bode well for my football. I could have played the following Saturday but Harry said the physio has advised him to leave me out for a couple of weeks as I’d been concussed in the accident. On top of that, I had to arrange for team mates to pick me up on the way past York which wasn’t ideal, and I often had to get a bus out to the outskirts to meet them. It was frustrating watching from the sidelines when I knew I was fit enough to play, even though Harry resting me was probably the right thing to do from a medical point of view. The only positive moment for me at that time was the fact that Harry told me he’d spoken to the Chairman and was looking to put me on a contract. This really encouraged me as there were only a couple of the other lads on contract and this meant that he rated me highly enough to think other clubs might come in for me. Having worked hard in pre-season, both at training and on my own, I was in really good shape fitness wise. The intense programme of games in pre-season against good opposition meant that by the time I the league programme started, I was already nearing peak match fitness.

The three weeks I had out took some of that edge away. I got back for a game away at Blyth Spartans, who were managed by John Charlton, Jack’s son. It was a good day for me, as my parents and brother had come across form Guernsey to take my brother to university in Newcastle and so were all at the game. I was just proud that they could see me playing at that level of football at a decent non league ground in front of maybe 450 fans. We won 2-0, and I had a fairly average game. I had been working on my fitness even though I hadn’t played for three weeks, but you can’t beat games for fitness, and I felt I had gone backwards a little. As a centre half, you should be strong in the air and in the tackle, be able to read the game and be able to defend both one on one and as part of a unit. I wasn’t the quickest like many 6 foot plus centre halves, so I relied on being match fit and sharp enough to live with forwards when they twisted and turned to create space or accelerated away, so that I could get a foot in or read the situation and put my body in between man and ball to win possession. Losing that edge meant I had less control over these situations and had to rely more on lunging tackles to ensure my opponents didn’t leave me for dead. I wasn’t bad at that but if you go to ground, you are out of the game for too long and cannot recover your position quickly enough. I wasn’t established enough in the team to be playing whilst only 85% match fit and I knew it.

The final part of Kevin Graham's Whitby Town story will be available tomorrow.

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